video recently released by Fort Lauderdale, Fla., police show in excruciating clarity a section of the mast of the tower crane that fell as it struck cars passing by an apartment building project, dazed and injured motorists and the grief-stricken set-up and assembly crew in the minutes following the tragedy.
One crew member, Jorge de la Torre, 27, fell to his death with the crane section and a work platform. The events that began around 4:30 p.m. on April 4 were recorded by a bridge camera and by body cameras worn by police officers who rushed to the job site.
The intimate videos of both the accident and its immediate aftermath, including the emotional agonies endured by the rigging and rigging crew, are particularly remarkable, as such images are rarely captured by so many cameras and perspectives and distributed to the media. Phone, project and security cameras and body cameras, however, in this case created a detailed visual record of the crash, including crew members describing what they believe happened.
The Unedited videos are likely to be used as evidence in lawsuits. One of the three people injured in the partial collapse of the crane in May it has already filed a $50 million lawsuit against the contractor and four other companies involved in the incident. As of July 18, short edited clips from both the body cameras and the bridge camera have been shown on Fort Lauderdale television stations.
The 43-story apartment building project was already an imposing structure on a seven-story foundation on the banks of a river and the Southeast Third Avenue Bridge that crossed the river..
The crane section hit the bridge only a minute or so after the bridge gate was raised to allow traffic to cross again. A bridge tender’s camera captured the pole section plummeting onto a black SUV. A confused female driver got out of her car, drove away, looked back at the wreck, and then sat on the wall of the bridge and leaned against the railing, contemplating what had just happened.
“Mom, what hurts?” asked one of the several people around him.
She stopped for a moment. “Um,” she replied, “absolutely nothing.”
A few minutes later a police officer asked her again if she was hurt, and she again said no, but added: “My mind is pretty messed up.” She asked for her phone and the police officer said he would take it out of the car for her along with the bag containing her ID.
Another driver, also apparently unharmed, approached a police officer, but the officer ordered him to continue.
“Go over there, away from the crane,” ordered an officer.
The man spread his arms in exasperation and said, “It’s already fallen.”
But the officer insisted, saying “I could keep falling,” and the man complied.
Other police drove to the job site and rushed to locate the crane crew. Inside the door, several officers approached four Phoenix Erecting & Rigging employees sitting sadly in the back of a tool shed. At least two different agents took names, addresses and phone numbers.
One crew member, sitting on the edge of the tool shed, had his head in his hands most of the time. Another crew member, wearing a dark shirt, was pacing here and there, distracted. They were a short distance, perhaps 20 paces, from the base of the tower crane where de lat Torre had landed in his fall.
A crew member who identified himself to police as the crew chief said he was standing on the work platform and De la Torre “was behind me, and all we heard was just a loud noise, and the tower overturned.” The police officer said, “And it came out on top of him?” and the crew chief said “yes”.
In another discussion with another officer, the crew chief speculated that a cable had failed.
And how had he survived? He said he was tied to a cable on the building and when the crane section and work platform fell he was able to grab onto the building.
Outside, a short distance from the gate, a Phoenix Erection & Rigging supervisor in a red polo shirt and carrying a backpack was trying to get through the project gate to reach the crew. He was approached by a police officer.
“My people are working” on the project, he told the excited officer, pointing in the direction of the building’s frame.
The officer said, “We have an injured person.”
– A fall, right? the man confirmed, and the agent said yes, adding “but you can’t go there right now.”
The man said yes, then got a phone call and explained his situation to the person on the other end. “Estoy acqui abajo”, I’m down here.
Later, the crew of fitters and riggers joined dozens of other workers who were present on the sidewalks that day. The bosses had been counting to make sure no one else was hurt or out.
The Phoenix Erecting & Rigging supervisor with the backpack was on the street joined by his crew and others gathered on the sidewalks and streets, which had been taped off by the police still worrying about anything else falling. The supervisor comforted the distracted, walking crew member in the dark shirt with a hug and a hand gently holding the crew member’s head; then the supervisor hugged another man who was not part of the rigging crew. In the video it was hard to tell who was comforting who as the crafts lingered on the sidewalks with the knowledge that someone from the project died that day in a terrible fall.
